


we carry the same wound, but have different cures

by Anonymous



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 13:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: And maybe pride isn’t about it, the showmanship, the objectification. Maybe it’s about the courage, to live when you’re afraid, to kiss because others couldn’t, to walk with fingers twined, to mourn and remember and feel the hope of a community pulling you up with both hands.(A meditation on identity and coping with the ideas of a future.)





	we carry the same wound, but have different cures

**Author's Note:**

> For all those struggling with themselves, I guess. Here are my thoughts, knowing that fandom is a small corner of my life as an LGBT person, and that my story is one of millions, and that the stories I write are not the people they are based on, but the feelings, the friends I've made through the experience.
> 
> This comes in the midst of my complicated feelings attending my local pride for the fourth year, the state of pride a year after Pulse. It is partially me trying to work through my grief. An id fic, kind of. 
> 
> The event is mentioned in this fic as a time reference and a point of introspection for the main character. If this is upsetting to you, take caution. [This is the Nike ad that Aaron appears in.](https://www.instagram.com/p/BU97GhuDmwO/?hl=en)
> 
> Please, if you have time, read the "Love is Love" charity comic anthology. It has been immensely healing for me.
> 
> Happy Pride. Hoping you, the reader, are safe and well.

There is an ache in being queer.

 

Aaron’s fingers hover over  _ post  _ for seconds on seconds, his hands shaking, and he knows - it isn’t - he  _ isn’t  _ \- but - 

 

But he is, and people died,  a few hours away from his team, this time last year. It weighs heavy in his mind - just  _ there.  _ Can’t process it. Can’t fathom it.

 

He doesn’t hate gay people, but he hates being gay himself.

 

The video loops in the background, empty voiceover, and he keeps thinking, keeps wondering and hoping and listening to the hollow reverberation of the words. 

 

He presses post and sits back, calls Dylan, and when Dylan doesn’t pick up, cries.

 

 

 

 

 

There is an ache in being uncertain.

 

He shaves, the day before LA Pride, and he tugs on a baseball cap, and he puts on a Kings shirt to seal the deal.

 

There’s him, and there’s Dylan, and there’s William and Tyson and -

 

He tries not to think about it too much.

 

The Mitchells settled down in their late twenties, decided they wanted to start a family, before the concussions hit. Aaron understands, after they hit him too. There’s so many x factors, his body treated as a commodity and every touch of the tips of the medic’s fingers seem to burn when he manages to stumble his way off the ice. The plummet from all star to twenty games on IR is severe, his breath leaving his chest in a long exhale as he lays flat on his back in a nameless hotel room in Toronto, the only person whose name matters to him right now curled up at his side.

 

One breath and he’s back there, back with Dylan’s head on his chest, the blinds shut, the do not disturb on the door, the television off and the clock radio covered and Dylan’s palms warm where they’re pressed to his sides, their breath filling the silence. It’s September and he’s in love, no big romantic love, a quiet, stoic thing, the way Dylan glances at him from the ice as he watches practice, the way Dylan worries when Aaron shuts the door and cries, pain radiating in nauseating waves from something that was just a fucking accident.

 

It’s three months after, and Orlando FC is winding down their season, the seats still rainbow, and Aaron can’t bring himself to attend.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s six months later, and he’s in Detroit again, sitting across the couch in Dylan’s apartment as Dylan sighs, scrubbing his hands over his face, his voice rough.

 

“I don’t know,” he manages, after five minutes of silence. “I kind of just assumed families weren’t for people like me. Like us, I guess. Like, I look back on me and Zach, and the sense of distance even when I was fucking wasted and puking my guts out and Brad and Zach were trying to tell me it was going to be okay.”

 

Aaron is quiet. He doesn’t push. This part is still taking him time. It took Dylan three years.

 

“It’s just, like - you’re here for other people’s gazes, you know? You’re here for girls who come up to you at a party because someone told them something and they want to watch you get fucked, and they feel like they have a right to you, because they’ve got a gay friend, and you’ve never met them, and it isn’t the liquor, it just -”

 

“Yeah,” Aaron says, and moves closer. Dylan inhales, wet.

 

“I got over hating myself a long time ago,” he says quietly. “It’s not like my family loves me any less, after the fact. It’s like the five stages of grief. Mourning someone you could’ve been. The good suburban dad, retired a Red Wings star, two kids and a wife and - I can’t even think to next year.”

 

In the other room, Glenny and Riley are shouting at a game console, and it feels like Aaron is underwater, drowning. The living room is too big, not big enough, and he needs Dylan to know, right now, that this is -

 

“I’m still on the hating myself part,” Aaron whispers. Dylan looks up at him from where he’s picking at the hem of his sweats, his eyes clear green.

 

“I wish I could take that on for you,” Dylan responds, tender, true.

 

“I know you do,” Aaron says. “I know we have our own battles to fight.”

 

“I’m really happy I found you,” Dylan adds, searching his face, and Aaron moves in, lets himself be kissed, just a second, just a panic and an acceptance and an adoration rolled into one intoxicating hit.

 

Aaron pulls back, rests his head on Dylan’s shoulder. Lets Dylan lace their fingers together to soothe his shaking hands.

 

“We should go to pride.”

 

Aaron’s stomach goes into his throat. “Not here.” 

 

Dylan winces, and Aaron feels awful. The last thing he wants to do is hurt him.

 

“Christ, of course not here. LA. This summer. Neither of us are going to the playoffs.”

 

“I don’t - I thought you wanted to stay away from objectification, why -”

 

Dylan’s eyes are filled with tears. Aaron is drowning.

 

“There’s families there,” Dylan adds. His voice cracks. “At the festival. Dads, with kids. Husbands that have been married for five, ten, years. Couples who waited twenty years and just signed the fucking paper last year. And I want - I think I can put up with some shitty stuff to get that.”

 

“Okay,” Aaron says, repeats it quieter, as if to soothe himself. “Okay.”

 

 

 

 

 

The ache grows stronger when he threads through the crowd, gently elbowing past the mass of people, some joyous, some somber, some completely unaware. Two gay men - two men that don’t look much different than him and Dylan, if he squints - are dancing, shirts off in the heat, rainbow briefs clinging to them, caught up and smiling and unashamed.

 

A group of girls, long blonde hair, Coachella glitter and cut off shorts, stop them, laughing, and ask for a picture.

 

Aaron turns away, head down, tries to forget the deeply uncomfortable look in their eyes as he ducks behind a tent, pulling his phone out.

 

The crowd swirls around him, boisterous laughter, piqued discussions about healthcare and inclusive churches and hiring policies and domestic life. Aaron breathes in, holds, exhales slow and steady, letting the sound and smell and feel of being present seep in.

 

_ where r u _ , he texts, and shares his location. Dylan is typing, then not, then typing again, and then - 

 

“Hey,” comes a familiar voice from under the brim of a Lakers hat, mesh tank exposing pink shoulders, and Aaron grins, pulls Dylan into the shade of the tent and kisses him, nervous, doing it anyways.

 

And maybe pride isn’t about it, the showmanship, the objectification. Maybe it’s about the courage, to live when you’re afraid, to kiss because others couldn’t, to walk with fingers twined, to mourn and remember and feel the hope of a community pulling you up with both hands.

 

He leans in, kisses Dylan again, and he loves him so much. no one looks, no one screams to out them, no one calls him  _ that.  _

 

The last thing he’s worrying about is the ad.

 

 

 

 

 

There is an ache in staying hidden, especially after a taste of being unafraid.

 

PR decides, well, he decides, that he doesn’t want to make an announcement, isn’t ready to go public. It’s okay. It doesn’t feel like enough, feels like he has so much space to fill, so much history to pay honor to. Nike says it’s fine. The other three are out. The world may have questions, but those who will ask will likely be the ones who need to hear the acceptance the most.

 

It’s hard. It’s fucking impossible, being apart, coming of age, facing media and facing his parents and the Mitchells and still finding time to breathe between, time to let himself cope and process and learn. There’s so many that came before him, so many to succeed. Supportive comments come flooding in. His family and friends have questions. 

 

Aaron turns his phone off.

 

He and Dylan skype the Mitchells after they get back to Toff’s place, their friends mixing drinks, the pool on the deck lit up blue to contrast the pink and purple sky. The noise of the highway is distant from here in the kitchen, the bar overlooking the world stretched out before them.

 

“How was your first pride?” Willie asks, grinning, no,  _ beaming _ . His eyes are full of pride, and Meg looks so eager, hanging on his every word. Dylan smiles at Aaron, and Aaron’s throat feels like it’s closing up a little, but he swallows around it.

 

“It was amazing,” Aaron says, and it doesn’t feel like nearly enough, because how do you encompass an experience so sacred, spanning so many walks of life, through just your eyes? “I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.”

 

“Understandable,” Megan says. Her voice is slightly distorted over the call. “I’m really glad you went, though.”

 

“We held hands,” Dylan tells them simply, smiling a little, looking over at Aaron for affirmation. Aaron loves him so fucking much.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s twelve months later, and Aaron is flying to Florida for marketing, to see juniors friends on a whim.

 

He picks up flowers at the airport, and sets an appointment for eight.

 

If there’s any time to push this community up with both hands, it’s now, the humidity oppressive, the bouncer’s eyes stoic as he pays the cover, adding the bouquet to the memorial by the door. It isn’t exact, to the day, to the place, but he’s here,  _ equality  _ stamped across his shirt, house music pumping in the background. Their story is not his, but he is finally authoring his own.

 

_ Happy pride,  _ Dylan texts him.  _ Go get ‘em, tiger. _

 

 


End file.
